How a tiny flick of fluff at the Queen’s coronation exposed the secret romance that would scandalise Britain
Their love story had all the hallmarks of a tragedy written in the stars – the vivacious young princess and the dashing war hero whose forbidden romance would captivate and scandalise a nation in equal measure.
Group Captain Peter Townsend was everything a romantic hero should be: tall, handsome, and fearless, with a chest full of medals from shooting down 11 enemy aircraft during the Second World War. Princess Margaret was the glamorous rebel royal, blessed with beauty, wit, and a charm that could light up any room.
But their passionate affair would ultimately be destroyed by the very institution Margaret was born into – leaving both forever marked by what might have been.
‘It Was Our Destiny’
In his deeply personal autobiography, Time and Chance, Peter Townsend made an extraordinary claim about their relationship – that it was nothing less than fate that brought them together.
We had known each other for nine years, during which time she had grown up from a schoolgirl into a young woman whose beauty, charm and talent had attracted scores of admiring and faithful personal friends,” he wrote. Yet among none of them had she found the man of her choice. That – incredibly – was the lot that destiny had reserved for me.”
The divorced RAF officer, 16 years Margaret’s senior, first met the princess in 1947 when she was just 17, during a three-month royal tour of South Africa. As her father King George VI’s equerry, Townsend’s official duty was to protect and accompany the young princess.
We rode together every morning in that wonderful country, in marvelous weather,” Margaret would later confide to a friend. “That’s when I really fell in love with him.”
Secret Meetings Behind Palace Walls
The taboo nature of their blossoming romance – a divorced man and a young princess – forced the couple to conduct their affair in the shadows of royal residences.
Townsend recalled with touching clarity the moment they first confessed their feelings in the red drawing room of Windsor Castle.
“One afternoon, at Windsor Castle, when everyone had gone to London for some ceremony, we talked, in the red drawing-room, for hours – about ourselves,” he wrote in his autobiography. “It was then that we made the mutual discovery of how much we meant to one another. She listened, without uttering a word, as I told her, very quietly, of my feelings. Then she simply said: ‘That is exactly how I feel, too.’ It was, to us both, an immensely gladdening disclosure, but one which sorely troubled us.”
Their stolen moments continued on long walks around the grounds of Sandringham and Balmoral, where they could speak freely away from prying eyes.
“We talked. Her understanding, far beyond her years, touched me and helped me; with her wit she, more than anyone else, knew how to make me laugh – and laughter between boy and girl, often lands them in each other’s arms,” Peter wrote with remarkable candour.
The Coronation Moment That Changed Everything
For years, the couple managed to keep their relationship secret from the press, if not from the Royal Family. But on June 2, 1953, at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, a single gesture would expose their love to the world.
As they waited outside Westminster Abbey, Margaret reached up and brushed a piece of fluff from Townsend’s RAF uniform. They laughed together, thinking nothing of it.
“I never thought a thing about it, and neither did Margaret,” Townsend later recalled. “After that the storm broke.”
That tiny, intimate gesture – captured by an eagle-eyed reporter – sent shockwaves around the world. The secret was out.
That gesture of the bit of fluff went right around the world and was in fact major story which led unquestionably to a crisis,” former royal press secretary Dickie Arbiter would later explain. “This was a public display of affection which was very unwise.”
The Impossible Choice
As a divorced man whose ex-wife was still alive, Townsend presented an insurmountable problem for the Royal Family. The Church of England – of which Elizabeth II was Supreme Governor – forbade the remarriage of divorcees. The shadow of Edward VIII’s abdication to marry divorced American Wallis Simpson still loomed large over the monarchy.
Margaret was under 25, meaning she needed the Queen’s permission to marry under the Royal Marriages Act of 1772. Elizabeth, caught between her duties as monarch and her love for her sister, asked Margaret to wait until after the coronation tour of the Commonwealth.
Under the circumstances, it isn’t unreasonable for me to ask you to wait a year,” the Queen told her sister, according to royal sources.
But Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the Cabinet refused to countenance the match. In July 1953, Townsend was abruptly posted to Brussels as air attaché – effectively banished from Margaret’s side.
Two Years of Agony
For two agonising years, the lovers were kept apart while press speculation reached fever pitch. When Margaret turned 25 in August 1955, she no longer needed the Queen’s permission – but she would still need Parliament’s approval.
The government, led by divorced Prime Minister Anthony Eden, proposed a compromise: Margaret could marry Townsend if she renounced her rights to the throne and gave up her royal income and duties.
In August 1955, Margaret wrote to Eden: “It is only by seeing him in this way that I feel I can properly decide whether I can marry him or not.”
When the couple were finally reunited in October 1955, the pressure was unbearable.
The Heartbreaking Decision
On October 31, 1955, Princess Margaret made the decision that would define her life. In a statement that revealed both her pain and her sense of duty, she announced:
“I would like it to be known that I have decided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend. I have been aware that, subject to my renouncing my rights of succession, it might have been possible for me to contract a civil marriage. But, mindful of the Church’s teaching that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before any others.”
She added, with touching loyalty: “I have reached this decision entirely alone, and in doing so I have been strengthened by the unfailing support and devotion of Group Captain Townsend.
Townsend’s response was equally dignified: “We both had a feeling of unimaginable relief. We were liberated at last from this monstrous problem.”
The Aftermath
Both would go on to marry others. Townsend wed 19-year-old Marie-Luce Jamagne in 1959 – a young Belgian woman who bore a striking resemblance to Margaret. The princess, perhaps in reaction to this news, accepted photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones’s proposal the day after learning of Townsend’s engagement.
In his 1978 autobiography, published the same year Margaret divorced Armstrong-Jones, Townsend reflected on their doomed romance with characteristic honesty:
“She could have married me only if she had been prepared to give up everything – her position, her prestige, her privy purse. I simply hadn’t the weight, I knew it, to counterbalance all she would have lost.”
A Love That Never Died
Peter Townsend died of stomach cancer in 1995 at the age of 80. When news reached Buckingham Palace, Margaret was reported to be “sad” – a typically understated royal response that perhaps concealed deeper emotions.
Princess Margaret herself died in 2002, having lived a life that, for all its privileges, never quite recovered from that first, forbidden love.
Their romance remains one of the most poignant chapters in royal history – a reminder that even princesses must sometimes choose between love and duty, and that the human heart recognises no boundaries of class or convention.
As Townsend himself wrote: “It was, to us both, an immensely gladdening disclosure, but one which sorely troubled us.”
In those words lies the entire tragedy of their story – a love that was both a blessing and a curse, a meeting of souls that society would not permit to unite.
